This is kind of a non-sequitur post, but I remember when I took my first journalism class in high school, my journalism teacher, Mr. Pattisall, told us that most people get their news from television. He continued with the cautionary notion that packing an entire day of news into 30 minutes (less without commercials) limited the depth of the reporting. Hence, the importance of print.
This was a line I heard through college journalism and politics classes. It's also an excuse that was often cited by actual television news anchors and reporters. How can we report all the details about [blank]? We only have 30 minutes!
And, of course, all of this was mostly before the rise of cable news. There was CNN, but no one really watched it prior to the first Gulf War. Nevertheless, television news now has 24 complete hours in which to present the details and depth of very important events. Instead, however, we get Glenn Beck, debate "smackdowns" about the salesmanship of policy, endless repeating of Twitter nonsense, and very little actual details in terms of what's important.
In other words, there aren't any time constraints and television news still fails. In fact, it's become far worse.
I refuse to believe that it's all because of the blogosphere. Anyone who tells you this is lying. The reason is the profit motive and nothing else. The television news media wants desperately to be liked, even if it means hurting the people it demands approval from.
Adding... Here's a challenge for the very serious cable news people. If you're so excellent and serious, how about not covering the impending Michael Jackson cavalcade of horseshit for any more than, say, 30 seconds a week. Show us you can be as serious as you say you are.